Award winning independent director Dan Katzir has released a trailer for his new movie, Yiddish Theater: A Lover Story. The film had its theatrical release in LA, NYC and Tel Aviv, Israel at the end of 2007, and had a special showing at Laemmle’s Monica and Town Center Encino in early January 2008. The film is self-distributed and opened #4 in the Daily Variety charts for highest ...
As Hamas attacks on Israeli cities continue, Israel has begun to consider a full scale invasion of Gaza. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, "We should be prepared for an upswing in hostilities in Gaza. The big ground operation is a reality and it is tangible. We are not eager to embark upon such an operation, but we are not put off by it either." The purpose ...
This is my first post (finally, after much arm cajoling) so I decided to make it an attention grabbing one. I've noticed people seem to be confused over Barack Obama's ethnicity. In his first run for Senate in Illinois, he apparently received a large share of the Irish vote because people saw his name and thought it was O'Bama. I have ...
It's campaign season in the US, and one of the issues that comes up during every campaign is "school choice." "School choice" is a code word for school voucher programs, through which money would be taken away from public schools and given to private schools instead. In other words, under a school voucher program, if parents choose to send their children to private schools, the government takes some or all of the money allocated to the public schools they would otherwise have attended and gives it to their private schools instead. Many Jews support the idea of school choice. This is a mistake, and here's why... ...
February 2008 has been a month that has seen a lot of ups and downs in Israel and the broader pro-Israel community. We've marked the 5th anniversary of the death of Israel's first astronaut; we've seen - possibly - the seeds sown for a very hush-hush 2nd "Disengagement" beginning with the small town of Kochav HaShachar; a suicide bomber killed one woman and wounded 38 others in Dimona, while a second suicide bomber was killed before being able to detonate his belt; Sderot, which has been under rocket fire for months, had its power knocked out in a Kassam attack; a Hizbullah official was killed in a car bomb, which resulted in Hezballah threatening Israel; and of course, on the political scene, US Representative, Israel advocate and Holocaust survivor, Tom Lantos, passed away at the age of 80. Now, even after we've struggled to wrap our minds around all of that, we must take a moment to acknowledge and reflect upon the passing of a true hero. Leutenant General Dan Shomron, the commanding officer who planned and led the legendary rescue operation in 1976, in which Israeli troops freed 103 hostages at Entebbe Airport in Uganda, died Tuesday in Israel at age 70. According to the Associated Press, sources at Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv confirmed his death as the result of a stroke suffered three weeks ago. The Jerusalem Post reported that he died at Beit Lowenstein Rehabilitation Center in Raanana. ...
The Herzl/Rocky Mountain Hebrew Academy from Denver, CO might be in danger of losing a tournament championship game before they ever set foot on the court. In the midst of a championship basketball tournament, if RMHA wins one more game, they can play for the title. However, the championship game takes place next Shabbos, March 8. The school petitioned the Colorado High School Activities ...
In the weeks following Spielberg's snubbing of China on humanitarian grounds, and the Israeli Knesset's recent decision regarding Asian Chefs in Ethnic establishments, we bear witness to an historic meeting of two countries: Japan and Israel. Iran's nuclear capabilities and desires have led their former business partner, Japan, to seek greener pastures. Indeed, Japan is interested in Israeli technology for creating the battery operated car, along with other sciences and technologies. It is even helping establish an agro-industrial park in the West Bank to provide jobs to Palestinians, as the AFP briefing reports. Greener pastures indeed. ...
There is nothing more filled with sound than quiet. It is both fascinating and frightening to listen to the cacophony of my internal sounds. After all, who knows what I might hear. My personal, layman’s, approach to quiet has always been to make so much external noise that I can’t hear the sounds from within. This is tiring and uses up a lot of time and ingenuity. A more direct conservationist approach would be to quiet the sounds from within. I have learned that this can be accomplished by giving them a chance to be heard. When I pause and pay attention to the sounds, they say their peace, hover for a moment, and then disappear in a wisp. What are those sounds, and where do they come from? There can’t be a voice without a speaker. Just how many of me are there? They might be inventions, but then who invented them? Who is asking? When Chi-Men was asked, “What is my self?” He answered, “Who is asking?” (Part of a Zen teaching) When we translate “V’Ahavta L’Reyacha Kamocha” as “Love Your Neighbor as Your Self” what is your ‘self?’ ...
I live between two distinct cultures. One part of me lives in America. I consume American culture by the boatload, I try to keep abreast of the politics, economics, news, and mass media. In ideology I empathize most closely with an open democracy, in which religion does not have a part (while it has a very important place in my personal life). I believe in the rights of the individual, sometimes to the extreme. The other part of me lives in Israel. The culture here is diametrically opposed. I abhor many of the advertisements, simply for lacking creativity. Fast food means going to a cafe. I realize that many people here are not used to global business or business practices, and it is taking them time to learn about customer service. Many have actually learned amazing customer service, by simply drawing the customer into their extended family. But people are here are much more open about asking very personal questions to people they just met 5 seconds prior. I have become Israeli enough to ask people that I met a few hours earlier how much they earn in a month. We are all family anyways ;) . ...
After nearly a decade, Skittles are no longer under hashgacha (kosher supervision) in Europe. For years, you could travel, or at least stop over, at a European destination and buy Skittles (as long as they were made in Ireland or England). No more. Growing up traditional, I ate the non-kosher Skittles, among other candies and dairy non-kosher products. Skittles ...
